A Mother's Love
by BlueBird722
Summary: She smiled down at the crying boy clinging to her shirt and jacket. "Remember, honey...even when you're not in my arms, you're always in my heart." 50-word sentences describing the relationship between Gar and Marie Logan. Mother/son love.


I present my...fourth 50-word sentences story. This one focuses on the Logans before Marie's death and Garfield's becoming a hero. To me, I wanted something that touched on a deeper, meaningful mother-son relationship that we didn't see on TV, and I hope I did a good job on it.

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**1. Birth**

The labor was difficult, but once the red-skinned, tiny baby wailed on her chest, she cried as pride replaced pain.

**2. Steps**

Gar always took small baby steps, letting his mother hold his hands, until he mastered walking and took to running.

**3. Father**

"Mommy," little Gar asked snuggling to her chest, "why don't I have a daddy?"

Marie bit her lip and struggled to answer.

**4. Hands**

Gar's were soft, smooth, and not yet damaged due to years of hard labor and tending to animals, unlike her calloused, hard, and scarred ones.

**5. Kiss**

Little Gar innocently kissed her lips, but Marie regretted not bringing out a camera to capture the innocence forever.

**6. Angst**

When little Gar was first stricken with the flu, Marie worried about the day when he would be in pain or sickness, and she would not be there at his side...

**7. Money**

"I may not have enough money," Marie boldly told herself as she watched Gar play with his toy elephant and lion out of the corner of her eye, "but at least I have enough to keep him happy and healthy."

**8. Trust**

"Rita," Marie said as she helped adjust her sleeping baby into her former co-star's arms, "will you be godmother to my son?"

The burnette held little Gar to her chest and wept through her nodding.

**9. Hero**

It took five days, but Marie was satisfied when the mail came in and Gar got the Aqualad poster he wanted.

**10. Cake**

Gar did not remember anything about his first birthday except for the picture his mother took of the little brown cupcakes shaping a swinging monkey on a branch

**11. Swim**

Gar learned to swim in the bathtub-the lakes and rivers were too dangerous to swim or bathe, but for him the waterfall was just a place to stand by when he needed a break and to relax.

**12. Spirit**

As the alien-creeps tortured him with endless experiments, Gar could imagine his mother's form at his side, weeping but encouraging him to survive and hold on a second longer...

**13. Discipline**

Gar's first punishment was losing his toys and tending to the animals-he never disobeyed his mother after that.

**14. Tapes**

"I want to be a TV star!" Gar excitedly showed his mother as they watched _Hello Megan!_ on VHS.

Marie laughed and smiled, but she hoped he would grow up to do something more useful and less competitive.

**15. Power**

When she heard about a possible dictator taking power over her country, Marie would have fled with her child had she not signed a contract to remain with the animals until retirement.

**16. Disgust**

Gar groaned when he watched a female wildebeest give birth, but Marie, carefully cleaning the newborn, smiled and appreciated the healthy new form of life.

**17. Fund**

If Marie had lived, she would have been devastated that Gar could never use the college fund she started for him since birth because of his skin color.

**18. Christmas**

Gar's first Christmas gift to his mother was waking up at four in the morning and feeding, cleaning, cleaning up after, and grooming the animals before going back to bed. His mother woke up, pulled on her shoes, walked outside, and came back in five minutes later.

Before she could kiss his head, he sat up and threw his arms around her as she whispered, "Thank you, sweetie. Merry Christmas."

**19. Superpower**

"Mom, if you could have any superpower, what would it be?" Gar asked his mother.

She fiddled with the ear on his bunny blanket pajamas as she thought. "Um...maybe, the kind who has the power to heal...cause world peace and cure illnesses and disease...why? What about you?"

Gar smiled. "Either power of water, wind, or change into animals!"

**20. School**

Gar never went to school-his mother homeschooled him and hired a private tutor to teach him subjects at the elementary school level in America.

**21. Reminders**

She rarely kept anything she had from America-he never knew about the high school plays she starred in, the other friends she had aside from Rita and Paul, the athletic trophies she won in middle school, because she had pushed everything away to move on.

**22. Diaper**

Marie pulled apart the diaper and leaned toward the wide-eyed baby. "Aw, look at what good pooey you made." Gar cooed as she smiled and held his little fingers. "Mommy's going to clean you up, smelly boy, huh?"

Gar squeaked and gave her a toothless smile as she changed him, blew on his round stomach, and tapped his tiny nose.

**23. Pet**

Unlike most children, Gar had wildebeest, snakes, and monkeys to call pets. Unlike most mothers, Marie had no problem with that.

**24. Animation**

Gar scoffed at the animated lion, zebra, hippo, giraffe, penguins, and monkeys talking to each other and declared, "Animals don't talk or act like that!"

Marie leaned forward and patted his head. "Well, don't forget-you know lots of things that other children don't, and they know other things that you don't. Just remember that you are no different than anybody else your age."

**25. Heart**

She smiled down at the crying boy clinging to her shirt and jacket. "Remember, honey...even when you're not in my arms, you're always in my heart."

**26. Market**

Gar spent most of his first trip to the market holding his mother's hand, but occasionally he would walk away to stroke the birds, tease the other newborn animals, taste different foods, feel the different cloths sold and offered, and listen to the music that made his feet bounce.

**27. Salt**

Marie looked at the small, still-packaged bath salts from the back of her closet and struggled to remember the life she had between _Hello Megan!_ and Gar's birth...only to realize that it was a darker period when she wanted to just be with herself.

**28. Sunday**

Sunday mornings for Marie meant tending the animals early, going back to the house, slipping into her son's bed, and holding him in her arms to sleep in until ten.

**29. Breakfast**

Gar's attempt at making breakfast in bed for Mother's Day consisted of coffee that did not match her particular taste, cereal in a cup with chocolate sauce, a vase with a wildflower, a thawing but still frozen bran muffin, and a handmade card of them on the cover with hearts and a big I LOVE YOU!

**30. Clothes**

Marie happily gave away Gar's old clothes to needy children, but she sometimes felt sad thinking that her son was growing up and outgrowing his favorite clothes.

**31. Medicine**

Gar grimaced and pushed away the spoonful of cough syrup his mother tried to feed him, proving that young children still do not outgrow the dislike of liquid medicine.

**32. Zoology**

From the age of five, Marie had taught him the subject of Zoology and taught him everything to the point where he could have been an official marine biologist by the age of fourteen.

**33. Mature**

"Mom...can you help me brush my teeth and comb my hair?"

"I can't, Gar...You should know how to by now. When you grow up and move away, you'll have to know how to take care of yourself without me."

**34. Life**

Gar took a deep breath and sighed, breathing in and out the husky air. He was eager to see more of the world, but for now all he wanted to do was remain in this country with his mother...perhaps until her death.

**35. Joke**

It took at least twelve different tries, but at least Gar's joke managed to put a smile on his mother's face.

**36. Waterfall**

The way that the water seemed to gently pour from the top of the rock and end in a smooth path had fascinated Gar until January.

**37. Movies**

Taking care of animals could be an exhausting, boring, and sweltering task, but on Saturday nights Marie liked to put on a film that she liked as a child and that Gar loved, make their favorites, and fall asleep with the plot still unfolding.

**38. Future**

Someday, Marie thought to herself, Gar would not be here in an animal sanctuary-he would be off in the world, doing something great with ambitions, determination, wisdom, and kindness, make more of a difference than she ever could.

**39. Flowers**

Those plants seemed to be sweet until Gar, picking them to delight the house, ended up sick, with a nasty rash, watery eyes, and tight chest and forced Marie to use her nursing skills on her son.

**40. Dance**

Until Gar was too big to carry, Marie rocked him to sleep every night by putting on soft romance songs and slow-dancing with her son, holding his head on her shoulder, her fingers stroking his soft hair, her nose smelling his sweet head, his fingers clinging to her shirt, until she heard the familiar sounds of a sleeping boy.

**41. Paint**

The first time his skin was green was when they were preparing for a national festival and, in the process of painting a large poster with colors of a rainbow, Gar accidentally picked up the paint bucket by the wrong end and green pigment poured all over his head. Marie screamed and then laughed before he could cry.

**42. Personality**

When asked what his son was like, Marie happily held his shoulders and said, "He's alert, but not a complete genius."

When asked what his mother was like, Gar felt a tightness on his shoulders and said, "She was...she was hardworking, but not terribly strict."

**43. Play**

To Gar, the outdoors and grass were his playground-he did not need multi-colored slides, ladders, or swings, to make him feel like a good time.

**44. Dreams**

"I had many dreams in my life, son...I wanted to raise a pet pig. That never happened, but I did volunteer at animal shelters and farms every summer since kindergarten. I wanted to be an actress...That happened, as I briefly starred in my own sitcom. And most important of all, I wanted to be a mother with at least one child."

**45. Death**

Gar's first experience with death was a wildebeest dying of old age. He was never attached to the animal, but it did pain him to think of death, a possible afterlife, and what happened to those left behind.

**46. Drive**

Gar developed a bad habit of sticking his head out of the Jeep while his mother drove, laughing, sticking his tongue out, waving, and calling out greetings to animals and people passing by.

**47. Natural**

Marie never wore makeup except for special occasions, and he honestly thought she was prettier bare-skinned.

**48. War**

The thought of a possible war affecting the country and land her son called home worried Marie when she watched the news in his eighth year of life and imagined the damage it would cause on him to struggle to move on.

**49. Patience**

"I'll wait for you!" she called out when she watched him, Megan, and Conner walk away. He waved, blew her a kiss, and watched her until she became smaller than a dot.

That was the last time she would ever see him, and he would ever see her alive.

**50. Memory**

Gar looked at where his house used to be, the animal sanctuary operated by someone else, and the waterfall on the eighth anniversary of that day. He closed his eyes and remembered her face, her sweet hair, her clothes, her eyes and her touch.

"I'm home," he whispered, trailing his hand over the tips of the overgrown grass.

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Secret: Although it was only one episode and in the comics, I'm really glad they brought in Marie Logan when introducing Gar-it's kind of sweet showing the origin he had that we did not see in _Teen Titans_


End file.
